1.
1660s in architecture
–
1660 - Completion of Moti Masjid in the Red Fort of Delhi. Tilya-Kori Madrasah in the Registan of Samarkand,1661 - Work begins on Versailles, near Paris. 1662 King Charles Court of the Greenwich Hospital in London, designed by John Webb, coleshill House in the Vale of White Horse, England, designed by Roger Pratt, completed. 1663-1665 - Kingston Lacy in Dorset and Horseheath Hall in Cambridgeshire, 1664-1667 - Clarendon House in London, designed by Roger Pratt, built. 1665 September 21 - New chapel at Pembroke College, Cambridge, England, chapel of Brasenose College, Oxford is consecrated. SantAndrea al Quirinale in Rome, designed by Bernini, is completed,1667 January 27 - The Opernhaus am Taschenberg in Dresden, designed by Wolf Caspar von Klengel, is opened. Saint Peters Square in the Vatican City, designed by Bernini, is completed,1669 July 9 - Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, England, designed by Christopher Wren for University ceremonial, is inaugurated. September 28 - Second Royal Exchange, London, designed by Edward Jarman, is opened for business,1666, September 2–5 - The Great Fire of London destroys most of the city including Old St Pauls Cathedral. 1668 - Roger Pratt becomes the first person knighted for services to architecture,1669 - Christopher Wren appointed Surveyor of the Kings Works in England

2.
Marie Mancini
–
Anna Maria Mancini was the third of the five Mancini sisters, nieces to Cardinal Mazarin who were brought to France to marry advantageously. Along with two of their female Martinozzi cousins, the Mancini sisters were known at the court of King Louis XIV of France as the Mazarinettes, Mancini was born on 28 August 1639 and grew up in Rome. Her father was Baron Lorenzo Mancini, an Italian aristocrat who was also a necromancer and astrologer, Marie Anne married Maurice Godefroy de la Tour dAuvergne, duc de Bouillon, a nephew of the famous field marshal Turenne. The Mancinis were not the female family members that Cardinal Mazarin brought to the French court. The others were Maries first cousins, daughters of Mazarins eldest sister, the elder, Laura Martinozzi, married Alfonso IV dEste, duke of Modena and was the mother of Mary of Modena, second wife of James II of England. The younger, Anne Marie Martinozzi, married Armand, Prince de Conti, the Mancini also had three brothers, Paul, Philippe, and Alphonse. In France, Anna Marias name was gallicized to Marie, dark, vivacious and beautiful, Marie captured the biggest prize of the French court, the romantic love of Louis XIV. Marie did not consummate her relationship with the Sun King and his love for her was a somewhat idealistic one, but he was so besotted that he wanted to marry her. Eventually, Cardinal Mazarin and the kings mother, Anne of Austria, separated the couple, banishing Marie into exile and arranging for Louis marriage to his cousin. In 1661, Marie was sent away to marry an Italian prince, Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, the bridegroom had not expected to find innocence among the loves of kings. They had three children, all sons, Filippo, born in 1663 Marcantonio, born in 1664 Carlo, born in 1665 After the birth of her third child, relations between Marie and her husband deteriorated. On 29 May 1672, fearing that her husband would kill her, in 1677, in order to support herself, she wrote her memoirs. She did not return to Italy until her husbands death in 1689 and she died in Pisa and is buried in the church of the Holy Sepulchre there. The character of Marie Mancini appears in the French musical Le Roi Soleil and her character appears also in the 2008 Italian novel Secretum by Rita Monaldi and Francesco Sorti and is the main character of the 2015 novel The Enchantress of Paris by Marci Jefferson. Bourbon and Stuart, Kings and Kingship in France and England in the Seventeenth Century

3.
Johann Caspar Kerll
–
Johann Caspar Kerll was a German baroque composer and organist. He is also known as Kerl, Gherl, Giovanni Gasparo Cherll, born in Adorf the son of an organist, Kerll showed outstanding musical abilities at an early age, and was taught by Giovanni Valentini, court Kapellmeister at Vienna. Kerll became one of the most acclaimed composers of his time and he worked at Vienna, Munich and Brussels, and also travelled widely. Although Kerll was a well-known and influential composer, many of his works are currently lost, the losses are particularly striking in vocal music, with all 11 known operas and 24 offertories missing. The surviving oeuvre shows Kerlls mastery of the Italian concerted style, employed in almost all of his masses and he was influenced by Heinrich Schütz in his sacred vocal music, and by Girolamo Frescobaldi in keyboard works. Kerll was the son of Caspar Kerll and Catharina Hendel and he was born in 1627 in Adorf, where his father served as organist of the Michaeliskirche. During the following several years Kerll was somehow able to combine travelling with working in Brussels without losing his job, first, Leopold Wilhelm sent him to Rome to study under Giacomo Carissimi. This was around 1648/9, Kerll must have met Johann Jakob Froberger, returning to Brussels for a brief time, he left again in the winter of 1649-1650, travelling to Dresden. He also attended the wedding of Philip IV of Spain and Marie-Anne of Austria, visited Vienna several times in 1651 and 1652 and spent some time in Göttweig, abraham van den Kerckhoven substituted for Kerll while he was away and ultimately succeeded him in 1655, when Kerll left. In February 1656 Kerll accepted a temporary post of Vice-Kapellmeister at the Munich court under Elector Ferdinand Maria, in March he succeeded Giovanni Giacomo Porro as court Kapellmeister. Kerlls fame started growing rapidly as he was more and more important tasks. Particularly important of these are his opera Oronte, which inaugurated the Munich opera house in January 1657, while in Munich, Kerll married Anna Catharina Egermayer in 1657. The couple had eight children, but only one of them, Kerll gave up his post in Munich in 1673 for unclear reasons - it is believed that there was a particularly serious quarrel with other court musicians which made him leave. Kerll did, however, maintain contact with Elector Ferdinand Maria until his death, in 1674 Kerll moved to Vienna. A pension was granted to him in 1675 by the emperor, although it has been suggested that Kerll might have worked at the Stephansdom, there is no proof. If he did, however, Johann Pachelbel would have been his deputy organist there, the 1679 plague, commemorated by Kerll in Modulatio organica, a collection of liturgical organ music, resulted in Anna Catharinas death. He married Kunigunde Hilaris in 1682/3 and stayed in Vienna for the next 10 years, surviving the Turkish invasion of 1683 and he visited Munich several times between 1684 and 1692, publishing his Modulatio organica and Missae sex there. At the end of 1692 Kerll relinquished his Vienna position and returned to Munich, agostino Steffani is perhaps his best-known pupil

4.
Opera
–
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. In traditional opera, singers do two types of singing, recitative, a style and arias, a more melodic style. Opera incorporates many of the elements of theatre, such as acting, scenery. The performance is given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition, in the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe, attracting foreign composers such as George Frideric Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Christoph Willibald Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his operas in the 1760s. The first third of the 19th century saw the point of the bel canto style, with Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti. It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Auber and Meyerbeer, the mid-to-late 19th century was a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Richard Wagner in Germany and Giuseppe Verdi in Italy. The popularity of opera continued through the era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, the 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism, Neoclassicism, and Minimalism. With the rise of recording technology, singers such as Enrico Caruso, since the invention of radio and television, operas were also performed on these mediums. Beginning in 2006, a number of opera houses began to present live high-definition video transmissions of their performances in cinemas all over the world. In 2009, an opera company offered a download of a complete performance. The words of an opera are known as the libretto, some composers, notably Wagner, have written their own libretti, others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e. g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte. Vocal duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action, in some forms of opera, such as singspiel, opéra comique, operetta, and semi-opera, the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, the terminology of the various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below. Over the 18th century, arias were accompanied by the orchestra. Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagners example, though some, the changing role of the orchestra in opera is described in more detail below

5.
Francesco Cavalli
–
Francesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli. Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy and he became a singer at St Marks Basilica in Venice in 1616, where he had the opportunity to work under the tutorship of Claudio Monteverdi. He became second organist in 1639, first organist in 1665 and he is chiefly remembered for his operas. He began to write for the stage in 1639 soon after the first public house opened in Venice. He established so great a reputation that he was summoned to Paris from 1660 until 1662 and he died in Venice at the age of 73. Cavalli was the most influential composer in the genre of public opera in mid-17th-century Venice. Cavalli introduced melodious arias into his music and popular types into his libretti, Cavalli wrote forty-one operas, twenty-seven of which are still extant, being preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice. Copies of some of the operas also exist in other locations, cavallis music was revived in the twentieth century. The Glyndebourne production of La Calisto is an example, the discography is extensive and Cavalli has featured in BBC Radio 3s Composer of the Week series. Music of Venice Notes Further reading Bukofzer, Manfred, Music in the Baroque Era, new York, W. W. Norton & Company,1947. ISBN 0-393-09745-5 Glixon, Beth L. and Jonathan E. Inventing the Business of Opera, The Impresario, ISBN 0-312-12546-1 Rosand, Ellen, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice. ISBN 0-520-06808-4 Selfridge-Field, Eleanor, Venetian Instrumental Music, from Gabrieli to Vivaldi, ISBN 0-486-28151-5 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Cavalli, Francesco. Free scores by Francesco Cavalli in the Choral Public Domain Library Rodrigo, free scores by Francesco Cavalli at the International Music Score Library Project

6.
Antonio Cesti
–
Pietro MarcAntonio Cesti, known today primarily as an Italian composer of the Baroque era, was also a singer, and organist. He was the most celebrated Italian musician of his generation and he was born at Arezzo, and studied with various local musicians. In 1637 he joined the Order of Friars Minor, or Franciscans, while he was in Volterra he turned more toward secular music, perhaps due to the patronage and influence of the powerful Medici family. Here he also came in contact with Salvator Rosa, who wrote libretti for a number of Cestis cantatas, by 1650 Cestis calling as a Franciscan friar and his success as a singer and composer for operas was coming into conflict, and he was officially reprimanded. In 1652 he became a member of the court at Innsbruck of Ferdinand Charles, after holding a post somewhere in Florence as maestro di cappella, he entered the papal chapel in 1660. In 1666 he became Vice-Kapellmeister at Vienna, and died at Venice in 1669, Cesti is known principally as a composer of operas. The most celebrated of these were La Dori, Il pomo doro, Il pomo doro was performed for the wedding of Emperor Leopold I. Orontea was revived seventeen times in the thirty years, making it one of the most frequently performed operas on the continent in the mid-17th century. Even Samuel Pepys owned a copy of the score and it includes a well-known soprano aria Intorno allidol mio. Cesti was also a composer of cantatas, and his operas are notable for the pure and delicate style of their airs. He wrote in the bel canto style of the 17th century, Cestis musical writing owes much to the emerging tonality of the time. Pietro Antonio Cesti Pasticcio, Festwochen der Alten Musik in Innsbruck 1980, excerpts from operas Il pomo doro, Argia, Tito, Orontea, Dori, performers, René Jacobs, Judith Nelson, William Christie, Konrad Junghänel. Antonio Cesti, Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy, a History of Western Music, 6th edition. Free scores by Antonio Cesti at the International Music Score Library Project Free scores by Antonio Cesti in the Choral Public Domain Library

7.
Louis Marchand
–
Louis Marchand was a French Baroque organist, harpsichordist, and composer. Born into a family, Marchand was a child prodigy. He worked as organist of numerous churches and, for a few years, Marchand had a violent temperament and an arrogant personality, and his life was filled with scandals, publicized and widely discussed both during his lifetime and after his death. Despite his fame, few of his works survive to this day, nevertheless, a few pieces of his, such as the organ pieces Grand dialogue en ut majeur and Fond dorgue en mi mineur, have been lauded as classic works of the French organ school. Marchands father Jean was an organist in Lyon, at around 1707–8 he became one of court organists. Between 1713 and 1717 Marchand went on a concert tour of Germany. After his return to France Marchand once again settled in Paris and worked as organist for the Cordeliers Convent, virtually all contemporary accounts contain lavish praise of Marchands keyboard talents, yet most writers also mention that the composer had an extremely colorful and unpredictable personality. This combination of skill and bizarre temperament resulted in numerous anecdotes, scandals. Marchands married life, for example, was unhappy, he beat his wife, separated from her after 12 years of marriage, one scholar suggests that the extended German tour was an attempt to escape his ex-wifes demands. A contemporary account by Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg gives a different reason, it wasnt his ex-wife Marchand was escaping from, but the French king, after an unfavorable remark made by Louis XIV about Marchands hands, the composer responded with an improper retort about the kings ears. Still another account claims that after Marchands wife had him, Louis XIV ordered half the composers salary to be withheld. Marchand, in response, broke off in the middle of a mass where he was playing and and he was apparently saved by the Jesuits, who took him in and, recognizing his talent, offered him the position of organist in the church in rue Saint-Jacques. But perhaps the most famous anecdote about Marchand is the account of the competition he was supposed to have with Johann Sebastian Bach in Dresden in September 1717. Bachs respect for Marchands abilities, however, was recorded by the same Jakob Adlung, comparatively few works by Marchand survive, most of them dating from the early stages of his career. The most numerous and arguably most important are his works, of which 12 were published posthumously. He singles out Marchands manualiter trios and non-contrapuntal works as the composers most successful pieces, all show Marchand as a skilled composer and performer, but give no indication of which style he would choose for his later works. Jean-Philippe Rameau was among Marchands admirers, and his pupils included Pierre Dumage, Dumage praised his teacher in the preface to his Premier livre dorgue, one of the most important works from the late years of the French organ school. In addition to his music, Marchand also wrote a treatise on composition, Règles de la composition, although today most of Marchands extant pieces are regarded as unimportant by most scholars, a few have expressed the opposite view

8.
Alessandro Marcello
–
Alessandro Ignazio Marcello was an Italian nobleman and musician. A contemporary of Tomaso Albinoni, Marcello was the son of a senator in Venice, as such, he enjoyed a comfortable life that gave him the scope to pursue his interest in music. Marcello, being an older contemporary of Antonio Vivaldi, often composed under the pseudonym Eterio Stinfalico. He died in Padua in 1747, alessandros brother was Benedetto Marcello, also a composer, who illegally married his singing student Rosanna Scalfi in 1728. After his death she was unable to inherit his estate, and in 1742 she filed suit against Alessandro Marcello, although his works are infrequently performed today, Marcello is regarded as a very competent composer. The Concerto for Oboe and Strings in D minor op.1 is perhaps his best-known work and its worth was affirmed by Johann Sebastian Bach who transcribed it for harpsichord. A number of editions have been published, including an edition in C minor, the Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, Oxford University Press,1994. Free scores by Alessandro Marcello at the International Music Score Library Project

9.
Antonio Bertali
–
Antonio Bertali was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque era. He was born in Verona and received music education there from Stefano Bernardi. Probably from 1624, he was employed as musician in Vienna by Emperor Ferdinand II. In 1649, Bertali succeeded Giovanni Valentini as court Kapellmeister and he died in Vienna in 1669 and was succeeded in his post by Giovanni Felice Sances. Bertalis compositions are in the manner of other northern Italian composers of the time and include operas, oratorios, a number of liturgical works. Particularly his operas are notable for establishing the tradition of Italian opera seria in Vienna, the Chaconne or Ciaccona is perhaps his best-known work. A catalogue of Bertalis works according to Distinta Specificatione Free scores by Antonio Bertali at the International Music Score Library Project NWOs VENI project on Bertalis sacred works

10.
Christopher Simpson
–
Christopher Simpson was an English musician and composer, particularly associated with music for the viola da gamba. Simpson was born between 1602 and 1606, probably at Egton, Yorkshire and he was the eldest son of Christopher Sympson, a Yorkshireman, who is usually described as a cordwainer but who was also the manager of a theatre company patronised by wealthy Yorkshire Catholics. There is a theory that Christopher Simpson, the musician, could have been the same Simpson who was educated as a Jesuit in continental Europe and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1629. However, Simpsons death in 1669 is at odds with the evidence that the Jesuit Simpson lived until 1674, Simpson fought in the English Civil War, on the Royalist side and, in 1642, was a quarter-master in the army of the Earl of Newcastle. Following the siege of York, Simpson took refuge at the manor of Sir Robert Bolles, at Scampton, Lincolnshire, Simpson remained in the Bolles household for the remainder of his life. His will was made on 5 May 1669 and was proved in London on 29 July 1669 and it seems likely that he died at Sir John Bolles house in Holborn, London, or possibly at Scampton Hall. The second edition is a text in English and Latin. It was a successful publication and continued to appear in new editions for sixty years after the death of its author. The accompanying portrait of Simpson appears in The Division Viol, in the first edition, he is depicted wearing a hat but, in later editions, the picture has been modified to show him bare-headed, as here. The picture also illustrates some of the techniques of viol-playing. For instance, it is clear that the bow is held underhand and it can also be clearly seen that the second and third finger of the right hand rest on the bow-hair, allowing them to be used to vary the tension of the bow during playing. Simpson wrote a guide to musical composition in 1665, The Principles of Practical Musick. Very few of Simpsons musical compositions appeared in print during his lifetime, some of his compositions survive in manuscript form. For example, he composed two sets of fantasias entitled The Monthes and The Seasons, which both consist of one treble and two bass parts, with continuo. The Seasons was recorded by Hille Perl in 2016, with liner notes about the piece. To play extempore to a ground is the highest perfection of it, curwen,1955 Percy Scholes, Oxford Companion to Music, OUP Margaret Urquhart, Chelys Volume 21 Was Christopher Simpson a Jesuit. 1992, Viola da Gamba Society Publications H. C. G. Matthews and Brian Harrison, The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ISBN 0-19-861366-0 Free scores by Christopher Simpson at the International Music Score Library Project